“So I can hurt him the way he hurt you.”
Janel slipped the cast beneath the table as if she were suddenly embarrassed by it.
She said, “F-ing Frank.”
“F-ing?”
“You know what I mean.”
I did. But the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to say the word was strangely endearing. When I first saw her, I guessed she was a prostitute. Now I wondered.
“Did you spend much time with Crosetti?”
“Some. He has a house on a hill not far from here. He would invite me to go to private parties over there. Finally, I did.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know what I mean by private parties?”
“I know.”
“I thought we were—friends. I thought he cared about me. He said he did. He lied.”
The bartender appeared, set the drinks on the table, and left. Janel picked up the fresh gimlet and drank half of it.
“Thank you for this.”
“Sure. About Crosetti, why did he break your hand?”
“It was over a drink.” She looked hard at the glass in front of her, turned it slowly, then gently slid it away, but not so far she couldn’t reach it in a hurry. “He asked me to meet him here. I was late. Just a few minutes, but he was really upset about it. Said no one keeps him waiting. I said I was sorry. There was a drink in front of him, and I reached for it, to take a sip, you know, and he grabbed my hand.”
She pulled the cast out from under the table and held it up.
“He didn’t say anything. He just grabbed my hand and squeezed it as tightly as he could. Frank has strong hands. I heard the bones crack. Then he smashed it against the table—twice. Smashed it down hard. Broke a finger and three bones. Then he left. He never said a word. I never saw him again. We called the cops”—Janel gestured toward the bartender—“but they didn’t do anything.”
“I’m sorry.” I seemed to be using that word a lot lately.
“All because I wanted a sip of his drink.”
“Before this happened, did you spend much time talking?”
“Some, in the beginning. Not much after I started—you know, going to his parties. And never before the party. Frank wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. If there was any talking, it was always afterward.”
“Did he ever use any other name besides Frank Crosetti?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you hear anyone call him by a different name?”
“No.”
“Did he ever ask you to call him by a different name?”
“Why would he?”
“I think he’s using an alias.”
“A phony name?”
“Frankie Crosetti was a ballplayer with the Yankees in the thirties and forties.”
“I never checked his driver’s license or anything, but I guess it makes sense.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Frank was from New York.”
“How do you know?”
“He said so. I figured that’s why he broke my hand. You know how cultures are different, how something might be an okay thing in one place and terrible in another. Maybe in New York sipping someone’s drink is like a supreme insult.”
“I doubt that. But you’re sure he’s from New York.”
“Yes. He said he was born in someplace called Hunts Point. He was very proud of it. And he kept insulting Minnesota, calling it flyover land, and Minneapolis, saying it was hickville, saying he couldn’t wait to get back to New York—to a real city, he said.”
I felt a twinge. What if he was already back in New York? What would I do then?
“He told me once he would take me with him, but …” Janel rested her cast on the table and took another sip of the gimlet. “I didn’t really want to go, anyway.”
“When was he going back to New York?”
“Soon as he took care of some business.”
“What business?”
“I don’t know. He just said he had business and when it was finished he could go back to New York.”
“Could? He said could?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Not would?”
Janel shrugged. “What difference does it make?”
“Maybe none,” I told her. But in my head the wheels were spinning. “Would” meant that Crosetti was on a simple business trip—he’d return home once he finished his work. “Could” meant that he needed to complete a specific task in order to be able to return to New York. Yes, I know it was flimsy. But since I was grasping at straws, why not take the tiny ones, too?
“Did Crosetti have any friends?” I asked.
“I saw him talking to two men once. But he didn’t introduce us.”
“What did they look like?”
“The two men? One was small, kinda scrawny. The other was big. Very big. And solid, if you know what I mean. But I didn’t pay that much attention.”
“Crosetti never called them by name?”
“No. I only heard a name once. He was on the phone. I don’t know who he was talking to or what was said—it was at his place, and he made me leave the room. But after he hung up, he said—he said, ‘F-ing Granata.’”
“Granata.”
“Yeah. Only I don’t know if it had anything to do with those two guys.”
I bought Janel another gimlet and asked several more questions, but it was just talking. As far as she knew, Crosetti still resided in his house on the hill, and she had no more idea of how to find him than I did. She made some noise about asking the authorities for help, only it didn’t get past the table.
The bartender came to tidy up. I paid him and bid Janel good-bye. As I was leaving she said, “If you do find Frank, don’t hurt him. He’s really not a bad guy.”
The bartender and I both glanced down at her cast. Janel quickly hid it beneath the table. The bartender shook his head and chuckled softly, but I didn’t think there was anything funny about it.
Caution is a habit. Practice it long enough and it becomes muscle memory. Longer still and it becomes instinct. Unfortunately, I hadn’t quite reached that place yet. The man who crept up silently behind me and rammed the business end of a handgun under my ribs caught me by complete surprise. He said so himself.
“Surprise, shithead.”
I had just crossed from the motel entrance to the far rim of the parking lot where I had left my Jeep Cherokee. I had unlocked and opened the door and was about to get in when I felt the muzzle.
“Don’t even think about moving.”
I examined him over my shoulder. He was about five-six and thin—you could knock him down with a Ping-Pong ball. He was smiling at me with all thirty-two teeth. I lifted my arms in a pose of surrender and looked down at the gun still pressed against my ribs. It was a single-action 9 mm Browning Hi-Power—with the hammer down.
I looked him in the eyes. He kept blinking at me like he hadn’t stepped out of the shadows in a long time. He didn’t seem too bright nor too ambitious despite the gun. One of those guys who did only what he was told between eight and five and whose idea of excitement was challenging the slot machines at the Indian casinos.
“Let me guess. You’re putting yourself through community college selling magazine subscriptions.”
He jabbed me harder with the gun.
“Don’t fuck with me. I’ll put a hole in you the size of a basketball.” He could, too. The nine was more than enough to do the job. Yet even a small-caliber gun would have earned my respect. Except the hammer was down.
“What can I do for you?” I asked. I was still clutching my keys in my right hand. I manipulated them so that the blades stuck out between the fingers when I closed my fist.
“We hear you’ve been lookin’ for my man.”
“Does your man call himself Frank Crosetti?”
“Tha’s right, and he ain’t happy you lookin’ for him.”
“How antisocial.”
“You think you’re funny?”<
br />
“Yeah.”
“Well, you ain’t.”
“Sure I am.”
“You ain’t.”
“What are you arguing for? You’re the one with the gun.”
“Tha’s, tha’s right.”
“Frank ever tell you his real name?”
“Huh?”
“Frank’s real name—did he ever tell you?”
He didn’t answer.
“Did he tell you he’s from New York?”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“What’s your name.”
“Danny—now wait a minute.”
“Where is Frank, Danny?”
The question seemed to confuse him. After a couple of starts and stops, he finally said, “We’re supposed to take you to him.”
“I don’t think so. But if you tell me where I can find him—”
“Whaddya mean? You’re comin’ with me.”
He pushed the muzzle into my ribs again. Enough, I decided. I pivoted swiftly to my right and covered his gun hand with my left, gripping tightly. The Browning was now pointed at the interior of my Cherokee, yet Danny didn’t seem to mind. He kept trying to pull the trigger just the same.
“The safety’s on, you moron.”
I punched him just below the ear. My keys gouged his flesh.
“Where’s Frank?”
Danny tried to twist away. I hit him again. The pain caused by the key blades tearing his skin caught up with him and he screamed.
“Where’s Frank, Danny?”
He brought his left arm up and tried to hide his head behind it, but it did him no good. I pounded his face twice more.
“Where is he, Danny? Where’s Frank?”
He dropped the nine. It caromed off the Cherokee’s rocker panel and clattered on the asphalt but didn’t discharge—with Browning, it was safety first. I slid my grip from Danny’s right hand up to his wrist. He tried to escape, but I jerked him back toward me. This time I hit him below his left eye. The force of the blow bounced him off the SUV. I released his hand and he fell. His face was bleeding profusely. I dropped my keys into my pocket and gripped Danny beneath both armpits. I lifted him up—he weighed about as much as a large box of laundry detergent—and leaned him against the Cherokee.
He spat the word “motherfucker” in my face. Somewhere inside me a switch clicked off. Suddenly there was nothing but darkness.
I backhanded him with a closed fist.
“Was it you, Danny? Did you rape Susan Tillman? You and Frank?” I hit him. “Did you threaten her daughter?” And hit him again. “Was it you?”
I drove my knee into his groin just as hard as I could. He cried out. He would have folded like an accordion, except I wouldn’t let him.
“Was it you and Frank who shot my friend?”
I was like a dog when the leash breaks. I pounded my fist into his solar plexus. Once. Twice. Three times. Four times.
His body convulsed. He retched and gagged, and I pushed him away just as the vomit spewed from his mouth. He crumbled to the asphalt and rolled into a ball. I aimed the toe of my shoe at his stomach but paused while Danny threw up on himself.
“Hey, Danny.” I was surprised by how relaxed my voice sounded. “Where’s Frank, Danny?”
He coughed and sputtered, and I thought he might answer me. But a Chevy Blazer drove up fast and skidded to a stop next to his writhing body. There was a man behind the steering wheel. I couldn’t tell how tall or wide he was, but he had brown hair, and his black eyes—I’ve skated on ice that was warmer.
And I remembered. Danny had said, “We’re.” Plural. How could I have missed that?
And something else. The guys who shot at Nina and me were driving a Chevy Blazer.
“Sonuvabitch,” I yelled.
The driver reached across his body with his right hand. There was a gun in his hand. He pointed it out the window. I was already moving. I dove backward and rolled and crawled behind the Cherokee. I heard a single shot. Crouching low, I ran along the rim of the parking lot, keeping the other vehicles between me and the driver. I had a permit—it had been issued by a friend of mine, the Itasca County sheriff—but I wasn’t carrying. Don’t ask me why. Fortunately, the driver wasn’t chasing me. I paused long enough to peer cautiously around a bumper. The driver was helping Danny into the SUV. He was as Janel had described him. Big. Solid. He saw me watching and pointed his gun in my direction. Only he didn’t fire. Instead, he scrambled into the SUV and accelerated toward the exit from the parking lot. I caught only part of his license plate as he turned onto Highway 212. A moment later, he was gone.
They’re after me, I told myself. They missed the other night, the night they got Mr. Mosley and the Tillmans, but they’re still coming.
“Who are these guys?” I said aloud.
I came out of hiding and walked back to my Jeep Cherokee. My door was still open. Danny’s Browning was lying on the asphalt beneath it. I left both as they were.
I heard a noise that sounded like laughter but wasn’t. I spun around. Two women dressed in business suits were standing on the other side of the parking lot. One had covered her mouth with her hand. The other had turned sideways as if she were preparing to run. Both were staring at me.
I used my own cell phone to call 911.
Lieutenant Brian Dyke seemed slight for a law enforcement officer, and I had no doubt he had barely met the minimum height and weight requirements. Yet he moved and spoke like he was twenty feet tall. A giant among men.
“The witnesses”—he jerked his head toward where the two businesswomen had been standing—“confirm your account of the incident.”
“Swell.”
Danny’s gun was still lying on the asphalt beneath my car door. Dyke looked at it as if he were seeing it for the first time, even though I had shown it to him an hour earlier. He shut the door and picked up the gun by the butt.
“I guess you don’t worry about things like fingerprints in the Carver County Sheriff’s Department,” I told him.
“You think you’re funny?”
“Odd. That’s exactly what Danny asked me.”
“Danny, who you claim pulled the gun on you.”
“Danny, who can no longer be identified by his fingerprints.”
Dyke sniffed at me like there were forces at work in the Criminal Investigation Division that I was just too dim to grasp and stuck the gun in his belt. Behind him a young deputy was chatting with a teenaged girl wearing a revealing halter and jean shorts hanging low on her hips. The girl kept her ten-speed bike between them. All the other deputies had departed shortly after Lieutenant Dyke arrived. I began to think Sergeant Brehmer was right.
“I’m this close to running you in.” Dyke held his thumb and index finger about a half inch apart.
“What charge?”
“Obstructing justice. What do you think you’re doing, conducting your own personal investigation?”
“You don’t seem to be doing it.”
“I don’t care for your attitude.”
“Maybe I’ll lose sleep over that. Whaddaya think the chances are?”
“All I can say is you had better stop sticking your nose into business that doesn’t concern you.”
“Doesn’t concern me? My friend was killed. Another was raped.”
“No complaint was filed on that.”
“I was shot at, and you’re doing jack about it.”
“Yeah, get all indignant on me. Go ’head, see where that’ll get you.”
“Let me guess. Bullies stole your lunch money when you were a kid, and now you’re using your badge to prove how tough you are.”
“You want to see how tough I am?”
“Did you at least run the license plate?”
“It was a partial.”
“First three letters—F as in Francis, A as in Albert, S as in Sinatra. How many Chevy Blazers can there be in Minnesota with those initials?”
Lieutenant Dyke didn’t say.
; “There’s a security camera in the foyer of the motel. It might have caught something. Did you secure the videotape? Janel in the bar saw two men who were friends of Crosetti. Do her descriptions match the ones I gave you? Did you canvass for witnesses? The one called Danny was hurt. Are you contacting local hospital ERs and outpatient clinics to see if his partner brought him in?”
It was like conversing with an empty parking lot for all the attention Dyke paid me. He said, “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that, McKenzie?”
“Do your job, for God’s sake.”
“That’s enough. No more from you. You’re done. No more investigation. You don’t go anywhere. You don’t talk to anyone. Not in my county. Better yet, get out of my county. Hear?”
I didn’t say if I did or didn’t. He moved close. His nose was inches from mine.
“Hear?”
“I hear.”
Dyke backed off and smiled triumphantly. “I don’t want to arrest you, McKenzie.”
I didn’t believe him.
I drove. An amazing thing. I accelerated, I braked, I turned corners, I even signaled my lane changes. It was amazing because I was so upset my hands trembled on the steering wheel.
It was very hot and very cold inside the Cherokee, and nothing seemed to make sense. Mr. Mosley. Frank Crosetti. Lieutenant Dyke. Especially me. What I had done to Danny. I had never hurt anyone like that before, yet I managed it without even a hint of pity or remorse. I had killed several men—once on the job, a few afterward. They were righteous shoots, meaning the grand jury refused to indict me. And each time I told myself, Here’s this guy trying to kill you, trying to kill someone else, don’t go shedding any tears over him. Just be glad you’re alive and move on. Only it never worked that way. I always felt nauseous afterward, sometimes for days. I always felt ashamed. Only not with Danny.
As I drove, snippets of song lyrics inexplicably entered my head and departed with startling speed. There’s nothing you can know that can’t be known, why do the birds go on singing, you can help yourself but don’t take too much, I went out for a ride and never went back, the things that you’re liable to hear in the Bible it ain’t necessarily so, and the colored girls go doo, doo doo, doo doo, doo doo doo … Maybe my subconscious wanted to tell me something, only it was like trying to find a coherent message in a bowl of alphabet soup.
Tin City (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels) Page 7